Non-profit organizations and NGOs are important social units that focus on specific and professional public services that the government cannot care details of social sector. For this importance, the central government and local governments subsidize the public services that the non-profit organizations do according to the ‘non-profit organization aid law’. Yet, these government subsidies concentrate on certain organizations unfairly and even go to organizations that are assessed ‘inadequate’ during the intermediate project assessment.
“2010 departments settle accounts analysis II” published by the National Assembly Budget Office points out several important problems regarding the Ministry of Public Administration and Security’s non-profit organization aid programs.
Ministry of Public Administration and Security promoted ‘Bright and Healthy Nation, Society Construction’ and ‘Development of Mature Democratic Values’ as the sub-unit project of the unit project ‘Development of Mature and Warm Society’. These projects aid ‘the Society for a Better Tomorrow’ and ‘Korea Freedom Federation’ respectively. In 2010, 2 billion won was set for ‘Bright and Healthy Nation, Society Construction’ and ‘Development of Mature Democratic Values’. Budget for 2011 increased by 500 million and 300 million won in 2011.
The sub-unit projects above carried out 2 billion won, 1 billion for each. Actually, they are aid for ‘the Society for a Better Tomorrow’ and ‘Korea Freedom Federation’. It turns out that the central government subsidized 1 billion for each organization. In 2010, only 153 of the 9000 organizations got subsidies for their public service projects and the average amount of subsidies is 30 million per organization. Also considering that organizations that don’t get government subsidies are suffering from financial difficulties, this is an unacceptable privilege.
Furthermore, ‘the Society for a Better Tomorrow’ and ‘Korea Freedom Federation’ are organizations that didn’t even go trough proper procedure based on the Non-profit Organization Aid Law to be selected as project player. Moreover, while organizations selected as for subsidy get their aids reduced or exempted according to the project assessment and accounting assessment, ‘the Society for a Better Tomorrow’ and ‘Korea Freedom Federation’ only received simple assessment of accomplishments and capabilities, which are only formal and irrelevant to subsidization. It seems that there exists some huge problems the way of fairness in Ministry of Public Administration and Security viewing public service projects and non-profit organizations.
In addition, ‘the Society for a Better Tomorrow’ and ‘Korea Freedom Federation’ get double subsidy also from local governments for the same promotions. The two organizations received subsidy from the Seoul city as well as the central government for promotions related to G 20, getting double aid for single project. Both ‘The Society for a Better Tomorrow’ and ‘Korea Freedom Federation’ have cities and provinces branches.
The two carry on the enterprise by the central office making decisions on plans and directions and subsidizing budget to each branches. Nevertheless, the local branches were receiving double aid from local governments.
In this way, although ‘the Society for a Better Tomorrow’ and ‘Korea Freedom Federation’ already got aid from the central government for G 20 promotion, the Seoul branch of ‘the Society for a Better Tomorrow’ and Seoul branch of ‘Korea Freedom Federation’ each received additional 24 million for ‘development of civic consciousness for successful G 20 summit’ and ‘making excellent Seoul movement for reception of G 20 guests’. Also, Ministry of Public Administration and Security issued second aid to those organizations assessed ‘inadequate’ by the evaluating committee and increased aid budget compared to last year.
As we can see from the chart above, ‘Save Free Korea Movement Org’, which was analyzed that the progress was vague received 30 million in 2010, and the subsidy even increased to 40 million in 2011. ‘Korea America Good Neighbor Society’ was evaluated that the organization strayed away from the public purposes but received 18 million in 2010 and in 2011 the aid even increased to 29 million won. Other than these, three other organizations and Volunteer Student Army of ROK received subsidy or even increased subsidy in 2011 after their further plans should be evaluated further. Moreover, organizations that omitted some parts of or the whole accounting documents mostly received increased or similar level of subsidy.
Non-profit organizations or NGOs are certainly involved in one of the most important parts of the modern society. That is why it is such a matter of course for those activities to be supported and accepted by the political level. At the same time, it is also a matter of course for those enterprises should be scrutinized and subsidized objectively.
However, like the problems Ministry of Public Administration and Security is showing, there definitely seems to be some serious problems the way they put them into actions. Isn’t this perhaps because the government neglects the original purposes of public goods while ladling out the budget to organizations that fit under their tastes? We must be aware that this is far more serious problem than we think it is right now. This is one facet of corruption that blocks the government from the civil society.